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Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium. in the early 3rd century BC. Beginning at around 301 BC, Zeno taught philosophy at the Stoa Poikile (i.e., "the painted porch"), from which his philosophy got its name The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection", would not suffer such emotions. This is the main thing it is known for, which is why the word stoic has become a synonym for calm or emotionless in public usage (Nevermind that public usage has very lenient definitions for what it qualifies as this). Something that in megaten has been associated with law, a bit in earlier games, but more overt starting in nocturne with shijima, and then becoming most obvious in IV. Though this may be for unrelated reasons, law occasionally does have an aesthetic that calls to mind ancient greece, perhaps being a tie in. Like in many eastern religions, stoics focus on the impermanence of transient qualities, combined with the solid unchanging nature of what was truly important, such as the reality of virtues and nature. Stoicism was divided into three parts, the ethics, physics, and logic. Different stoics disagreed about how important each part was, but ultimately they said that the main part of importance was the ethics, and that the other parts exist to help practice and understand the context of ethics. I won't bother talking about their logic, since most logic forms are interchangeable. One important facet of stoicism though is that it interpreted zeus as not only a monotheistic deity, but an all-good one, that they more commonly referred to as the logos, the logical ordering structure within reality. The concept of the logos from greek philosophy was incorporated later into christianity, showing up in the book of john as a description for god. In megaten, yhvh is depicted in SMTI as a partially composite figure with zeus, (information on the greek mythology page) so this ties in to how certain depictions in greek mythology and philosophy did actually survive by being subsumed into christian theology and culture. Since the logos, which is also called zeus did merge with yhvh in actual theological depiction. Stoicism is one of many greek philosophies that christianity and later western culture in general drew on, and which understanding of can help contextualize its development. The only time the word stoic is used directly in the games however is for a shadow in p3 and p4 called stoic snake. While a relatively innocuous enemy, its depiction as more ice-spell leaning and weak to fire is in keeping with stoicism being considered a more law-like quality. Physics and Theology Stoic physics. Note that at this time period, the nature of the world, and theology were considered one subject. So to them, “theology” fell under the definition of physics. As did metaphysics. Materialism. The stoics were strict classical materialists, who believed that everything that existed was, or supervened on solid matter, which at the time were envisioned as tiny geometric shapes. God or Logos (Note that although they also sometimes use the word zeus, their idea of god bears no resemblance to the general zeus of greek mythology) The stoics had some elements, of monotheism, polytheism, and pantheism all in one. Although certain stoics wavered on whether or not the polytheistic gods existed (made out of matter), or whether it even mattered, the main God to them was known mainly as the logos, which was a world soul that everything existed within. However, unlike more abstract or mindless world-souls, this was seen as an active benevolent and sentient entity that actively guided the world to its betterment. Since only matter existed, this world soul was an encoded mind physically existing across all reality itself, composed of the elements fire and air. And it was known as the logos, to imply it was a logical ordering structure that provided sense to the world inside of it, including the structure of morality. The universe was seen as a sphere composed of the logos, and even empty space was seen as filled with it. And outside of it was the only true emptiness, known as the void. Some stoics considered the greek gods not to be separate entities from the logos, but merely metaphors for parts of it. With zeus being considered the main part, and the other gods reflecting sub aspects. Note that this ambiguity shows the ambiguity of gods arising from the great will in megaten, and how much seperate existence they have. The word logos was later used by Christians to refer to Jesus, and the ordering properties of God in general. Making the beginning of the gospel of john something that if you read in the original language was a literal appeal by him to people familiar with stoicism that their God was ultimately just the christian God. Making a tying between law and stoicism using christian symbolism rather on point. Also, angel being represented more serene like stoic sages did not happen until later on, potentially due to stoic influence anyways. It is unsure whether this is a coincidence or not though. Notice also that the holy spirit is described like a world soul that you cannot communicate and does not speak directly. Though this may not be directly stoic influence. Note here that although it was a sentient entity, the logos did not communicate with humans, or even the gods directly. It was simply an ordering principle of reality that you must extrapolate the will of from studying reality and doing philosophy, since there was no divine revelation from it. (Although some stoics did believe that omens may be causal signifiers of bad things to come. This wasn't necessarily divine revalation, just something they assumed had to do with causal necessity. And even this was rare for them). Minus the explicit sentience, this is actually another loose megaten tie in, especially in IV where the silence of God, and angels trying to extrapolate his will, and lucifer complaining that it doesn't matter is a big theme. Although they focused on this less than hindus did, stoics pointed out that people, and even the gods existed as microcosms of Zeus who gave pieces of himself to them to cultivate by virtue. And they said that one way to look at the relation between life is via the metaphor of being different pieces of one organism. Something they thought that in some sense was literally true, being pieces of zeus who all lived inside of. Although as stated, this was more of a novelty useful to point out as metaphor to them, rather than something that mattered to their practice or came up much. This also led to a form of more radical egalitarianism, since they pointed out that anyone could if they properly worked to become a sage, tune into this cosmic consciousness to arrive at good conclusions, that if right even the gods could not be “more right” than. Though they noted that the gods were probably wiser than they were. This led to them downplaying the need for temples or revering of the lower gods, and so was obviously closer to monotheism in this sense. Note that their wavering on gods also made them waver on the existence of a concrete afterlife. But they pointed out that this is something that you should not concern yourself with, since your goal is living well in this life. (Augustine later flipped this for christianity to say a truly good life was something that takes place in heaven, and this is leading there). Note also that this explains in some sense the idea of the great will in megaten, and their relation with it. it is literally in some sense the summation of all life, that life exists as pieces of. So focusing on that relation, and dubbing it the core of what to focus on about God is a useful lawful approach to morality. The importance here of the archetype of the sage rather than the sentient gods shows up in law as well, where angels (and even polytheistic gods, especially in I and SJ) are there to help set up the lawful world, but are not a huge focus. Even YHVH is not as huge a focus in the sentient, rather than the abstract sense. And zayin's lines in the added scenes of II about God not having one face, but about how anyone can become a face of god ties into the idea of the sage, loosely. Since of course stoics focused heavily on deciphering God's will by reason as individuals, with sages or enlightened individuals being the main embodiment. But sages were not considered divine in their own right, but merely in high knowledge of the will of the logos. Which ties into law's focus on the idea of faces of God being more of a messenger of God than literally independently divine. (Obviously this isn't one for one, but you get the idea.) Pneuma in its purest form can thus be difficult to distinguish from logos or the "constructive fire." In the Stoic universe, everything is constituted of matter and pneuma. There are three to four main grades or kinds of pneuma, depending on their proportion of fire and air, in increasing order of complexty, and this explained the difference between “dead” matter, plants, animals, humans, etc. Note that the pleuma was considered the substance that the individual soul was composed of, but was a physical substance. And the individual soul was made of the same elements as the world soul. Ekpyrosis is a Stoic belief in the periodic destruction of the cosmos by a wave of fire every Great Year. The cosmos is then recreated (palingenesis) only to be destroyed again at the end of the new cycle. Some stoics even believed that each cycle would be identical to the previous one. So while they did not always believe in a specific afterlife, (although they generally assumed there was one) they noted that reincarnation of a sort may exist regardless. Ethics - General Virtue Ethics Ethics. The stoics divided their ethics into three disciplines, called **the discipline of desire, the discipline of action,** and **the discipline of judgement.** These in order meaning training to overcome unruly emotional impulses for the first, training, to perform the right action for the second, and training to have an objective understanding for the third. They emphasized that the discipline of desire was the most important to begin first, since without reigning in damaging emotional reactions to events, objectivity, and thus even knowing the right action, much less guarantee that one will perform it is unlikely. The discipline of judgment was considered the applied form of logic, as applied to their ethics. Practical wisdom was what the stoics defined philosophy as about. Namely, it wasn't meant to be purely abstract, but to literally be a method to enhance ethical practice. Virtue ethics. The stoics were strict virtue ethicists (In part, since this was more or less the only moral theory existing at the time). Which is the idea that morality is cultivation of virtue, rather than about any specific action. And that having more virtue was more moral, with outside virtuous actions instrumental to cultivating virtue. Law obviously doesn't really follow virtue ethics, and neither does neutral, and chaos arguably does in a way, but not in any format that the stoics would approve of. (Nietzche is considered a form of virtue ethicist where the virtue are self oriented and indulgent ones, as is ayn rand.) Stoics actually took virtue ethics to a semi radical conclusion that some others did not (although less radical than the cynics, see below) saying that the only thing that matters in any sense is virtue. Suffering or happiness didn't matter at all. However, they did break down their value theory into five categories to make a meaningful distinction that didn't leave people clueless. They said that the only things truly good or evil were virtues and vice. Everything else was indifferent. However, within the indifferents there were still preferred indifferents, indifferents to avoid, and things indifferent in the stricter sense. They pointed out that some things are naturally preferred by people, and so they gravitate to them inherently. And is it is okay to engage in preferred indifferents, or happy experiences, so long as doing so does not lead to vice. This was a departure from the even more ascetic cynics who believed you should not even engage in happy experiences since only virtue mattered. Virtue ethics as a whole is still one of the main theories of ethics, although it has fallen out of favor over time, due to other theories superseding it, as well as other theories incorporating theories of the importance of virtue into them in ways seen as more sensible. An important aspect of their ethics on the aside from is that they insisted that people who are heavily filled with vice, rather than being thought of as willfully evil should be thought of like dogs tied to cards, stuck on the whim of their emotions and weaknesses being pulled everywhere it takes them. This was not meant to alleviate all responsibility, but like some later christian ideas was meant to downplay judgement of them as individuals, to focus on instead helping them. This also shows up in IV on law. Note that johnathan uses the word evil, whereas merkabah shifts to the more vague designation of filth. Avoiding making a necessary judgement of morality, but flatly stating that something is a problem. (Though he does call lucifer evil one time.) Preferred indifferents. To the stoics, the good and bad were simply virtue and vice. Suffering and pleasure were theoretically indifferent. However, they saw it as natural for people to desire pleasure, and so considered this what they called a preferred indifferent. This means something that people want, even if having it is not in itself considered a good in the moral sense. But it is okay to have, so long as it does not conflict with virtue to have. They did not believe in making yourself suffer or depriving yourself of comforts for no reason. Only in being ready to when necessary. Since law is using a utilitarian framework, rather than a virtue ethical one, the concept could be adapted slightly to make sense in such a context. To a utilitarian the good is raising utility. However, it does not differentiate between where this utility exists. A preferred indifferent to a utilitarian framework then would be you having this utility, rather than it being sorted in a morally equal way where you do not. Utilitarians, despite prioritizing the big picture are not life denying however, and see this experience as fundamentally the essence of the good. Even if the big picture good should be prioritized over your own. Not because its not valueable, but because its too valuable to be selfish about. Cosmopolitanism. One major aspect of stoic teachings was its emphasis on cosmopolitanism. At a time when most people were ordered into separate city-states focused on their own interests, zeno emphasized that "all the inhabitants of this world of ours should not live differentiated by their respective rules of justice into separate cities and communities, but that we should consider all men to be of one community and one polity, and that we should have a common life and an order common to us all, even as a herd that feeds together and shares the pasturage of a common field." \ This emphasis was not just about laws, but about morality in general, understanding that one should focus on everyone, rather than the ingroup, and even including people who might be at odds with you. This focus setting a large tone for the west's later focus on universal systems. Note how law, being defined as western themed focuses more on cosmopolitanism, whereas chaos focuses more on ingroup logic. Being more eastern themed, chaos relates more to the eastern emphasis on morality relating to your ingroup. Natural Law Natural law is a concept which while you don't hear it as often anymore used to be an important concept to use to frame how morality worked Namely, that while humans make laws for their cities that can change, that there is some kind of law within nature in general (note that nature here as a term meant something closer to reality than to our ideas of nature now) which by its nature is universal. Although this was seen by them as having been created by the logos, or ordering principle of reality, they also pointed out that it existing in nature alleviated the need for it to be a divine decree in any sense. What is right for you to do simply is part of reality. And you should be able to use logic to understand this much and make a system of ethics even without a system of theology or meta ethics explaining where you think these rules came from. In modern day the need to specifically ask whether ethics should be described as a law of nature has been subsumed into other traditions, and so no one really uses the term natural law anymore other than in religious traditions. Even there is is often relegated to outdated extremely sketchy ways for more traditionalist ones to explain by what angle they think homosexuality is dubious, by using classical ideas of teleology or the natural ends of items. Which is ironic, considering the source. Although the term natural law is not used in ethics much anymore, it is important in the history of philosophy to explain one of the reasons that western ideology like christianity is considered law, and eastern religions sway more chaos. (not exclusively. Many eastern gods show up in law as well, but not as commonly since angels tend to monopolize its plot roles). Natural law has to do with the development of the idea of phrasing of moral statements as imperatives. (Note that Judaism however did this before hearing of the concept). This is something that in the east did not exist to such an extent. Moralty in the east was seen as a good thing to do, but was not really seen as something you “had” to do. These distinctions may be nuanced in various ways, especially since in the east they still believed bad actions would send you to hells, but the differences do lead to the idea that although not necessarily correct, leads people to think eastern religions are more lenient. Which is why half of the internet thinks buddhism is nihilistic and has no rules, neither of which are true. The connotations of them were more that virtue and skillful practice in the east were seen as something it was incoherent to try to force, since while you can punish bad actions, and reward good ones, and it is right to do so, virtue itself is not something that is external to the individual. Early ethics in history in both the east and west did have a larger focus on virtue ethics than they do now. Goals and Virtues Eudaimonia (contentment) is a word used in different Greek philosophies to refer to their different goals of what each of them saw as the end state of human flourishing. For the stoics, it was seen as a state of peace or serenity that the sage would exist in once free from passions. Eudaimonia was defined as the final goal not just of stoicism, but of many greek philosophies. A direct translation translates it as happiness or contentment, but in practice this is not what it meant, but meant something more like “good life.” The point of philosophies like stoicism of course was that shooting for just your own happiness directly was not by itself the path to the good life, but rather you needed to cultivate proper virtues, which would then by their nature make you happy as well. But your goal should not be the happiness, but rather then virtues. The four cardinal virtues is a later name for their categories of what the primary virtues ultimately reduced to. There were many virtues, but in practice they could each being seen as reducing to a form of these. These are: 1: wisdom. Knowing what should be done, and how to live. 2: courage. The strength to do what you should. 3: justice. Namely, putting the wisdom into practice. Doing what you know should be done fairly. 4: restraint or temperance. Simply, the strength to avoid doing what you shouldn't. Political theory Zeno's republic deserves at least a passing mention. Although not much remains of it, and many later stoics said it was not a high quality text, zeno made his own writing called the republic, likely as a response to plato's, describing how their ideal society would function. People were more androgynous and there was one type of clothes both sexes shared. There was some vague type of government described as somewhat egalitarian, but sages would be the ones in positions of power. And the society would be arranged such that it would exist for the cultivation of sages. Interestingly, according to his contemporaries, zeno was only interested in men, so his description of the ideal society may have reflected some of those tendencies. Ethics - Equanimity General Stoic equanimity is the thing they are most known for, and so can be distinguished from its pure ethics. It should be noted however that in practice to them they considered it part of their ethics. Both since it was virtuous in nature, and because its purpose was to become and maintain virtues in other ways as well. Someone who perfectly mastered their teachings would become a sage. There were various means they used to maintain this calm, from the view from above, to various means to stay in the present moment. Unfortunately, most of their traditional practices there are not good records of. Proto passions are automatic responses to events. These they said were in a sense out of your control, and so even a sage may have proto passions which are seemingly unruly. But they do not develop until full passions until you feed into them. A sage may have an immediate response to something tat surprises them, being human, but would not feed into this and would never make incorrectly reasoned conclusions based on it. Part of this equanimity was facilitated by various meditative techniques. One of such being to identify your circle of influence. If something was outside your control, you need not worry about it. If it was within your control, you should focus on doing what you should as regards it, rather than having a mental reaction. The ultimate takeaway was that you can only ultimately control your own actions and reactions, and your circle of influence is only what can be effected by those. Passions Passions (or pathos) were seen as the negative passions that cause errors in reasoning and moral action. You can also translate them as emotions, since it should be noted that even some weaker everyday emotional attachments were seen as damaging by them. They reduce to four general responses. Note that these four passions are a combination of two binaries. 1: appetite. or irrational desire for a future event. 2: fear or irrational aversion to a future event. 3: pleasure or irrational clinging to an experience one already has. 4: distress or irrational upset at an experience one already has. Sages The Sage or Sophos was the archetype of a person of moral or intellectual perfection, who did not experience the passions at all. In practice this was seen as a near unreachable goal, and so the goal of stoicism was merely to move as close towards it as one can. In fact, The standard was so high that Stoics were unsure whether one had ever existed, if so, possibly only Socrates or Diogenes of Sinope had achieved such a state. They considered this then not something one could be or identify, but simply an archetype of perfection to use as a reference point about what to move to. Nonetheless, they still used people they believed were very close as real world examples, albeit with a warning to accept that they were not perfect, and so were fallible. All fallible people were described as “insane” to an extent in that none of them were above wrong judgments. A sage however was seen as incapable of making wrong judgments at all. Which they rightfully understood was a standard none may fully embody. They believed that from the logos was an implicit command in reality to live your life moving to sagehood to the best of your ability, and this was ultimately what morality was about. Asceticism Askēsis is a way of life involving constant practice and training towards the goal of becoming a sage. It translates to asceticism, but the more extreme world-shunning mentality that that word later came to be used for is not quite identical to the stoic use. Unlike other ascetics, the stoics did not think you inherently needed to deny yourself everyday forms of happiness, as you have preferences by nature, but someone fully virtuous would be willing to deny themselves anything they need to at any time if doing so was virtuous. In practice this would generally mean not having strong preferences for irrational impulsive types of pleasures that may be tied to vice however. Note that although law in-game does not profess a form of virtue ethics, that this concept does closely tie to their approach. Which is why law heroes tend to sacrifice their lives. Dispassion Apatheia, translated as without passion was seen as a state of peace or serenity that the sage would exist in once free from passions. Once one becomes a sage this cannot be disrupted by anything. It refers to a state of mind where one is not disturbed by the passions, or “emotions”. Although it sounds similar to the word apathy, a more accurate translation would be calm or equanimity, rather than apathetic or indifferent. The word apatheia has a quite different meaning to the modern English apathy, which has a negative connotation. Stoics themselves warned that freeing yourself from unruly emotions was not meant to be cold like a statue which did not care about others, but that the goal was to be free from irrational cravings and aversions that pulled you around and made you biased, so that you would be free to be virtuous in an understanding way. And that this would ultimately make you enjoy life more besides, since you are free from your damaging irrational appetites that disrupt your ability to. The most direct depiction of this in game being how you are depicted in the law ending of IV when you answer the questions correctly. In fact, earlier on lilith even describes it in a stoic like manner, talking about (If you respond unemotionally) how you gave your mind and body over to God, who in IV is described as more abstract. Christianity itself obviously doesn't have this same kind of focus on nonemotionality (even though ironically Jesus was described in this way. It just didn't catch on as a main focus or practice to shoot for). Contrast this approach with the more neutral aristotle, who claimed that virtue was to be found in the golden mean between excess and deficiency of passions (which he called metriopatheia). The stoics wanted to be free from, and the master of them all. Note of course that since stoics thought that the logic of the universe was the same as “God,” and your inner nature that coincided with the natural law came from God as well, they would have described living properly virtuously in a sense as this as well. There are actually parallels between taoism and stoicism drawn in which morality is a microcosm of the logic of reality that has to do with one's inner nature, and properly following the logic of it. And of course if you consider the great will from the perspective of a collective, and replace references to god with collective, lilith's description explains lawful ideology. Which works well with stoicism, since you each have a small piece of the essence of the logos, and moving in tune with it is something you can do without direct divine commands. Positive feelings Eupathos or eupatheia or good mentalities / feelings were what a sage would have instead of passions. The sage has no 'appetites', but does have 'wishes', whose species include kindness, generosity, warmth and affection. Generally there were three main ones. 1: Joy or Serenity. In this format it would not be the more banal version, but a feeling of elation or peace of mind. Serenity, as opposed to irrational pleasure that frames itself in terms directly of needing an object. Stoics often pointed out that it is not things that cause you suffering, but your responses to them. And so you techncially have the power to revoke or change the response at any time, if not easy in practice. 2: Caution or discretion is a rational feeling of avoiding the bad. 3: Wishing or willing. It is the sage's form of preferring the good, so as to be able to act. But understanding that all that matters for them to do is be virtuous. Stoics answered claims that they were a lifeless philosophy by pointing out that they were not trying to become cold, but rather joyful in the sense of that once they were free from negative cravings the replacement would be a state of constant serenity. This would help them be more virtuous towards others, but at the same time they thought that this focus would actually increase their own hapiness by detaching it from irrational impulse that could not be sustained. Natural affection / love is another thing that although not defined as an emotion per say is a sense that the sage would have. Sages would rationally naturally wish well for all mankind as the equal to themselves, since all people exist to work together as if they were parts of the same organism. Note that stoics see clinging love as wrong. Only freely given love that does not cling is optimally correct. The idea of all seeing yourself as attached to one organism being in part what law derives lawful morality from, in reference to the great will. Which as lucifer even points out in I, God is a kind of abstract collective of all life. Which law then sees following and complying with as acting for the maximal benefit of the all in an agent neutral sense. Note that this led to stoics having internal discussions about whether that meant a sage would ever love and marry one individual, or whether that was a mark of not yet being one. But they concluded that in a similar way to how pragmatically living morally has to be focused on individual events, there was nothing wrong with a sage focusing love specially on a family, not to mention that nothing wrong with it being a preferred indifferent as well, so long as it does not lead to vice. So the stoics sought to take some ascetic practice, but formulate it into something that did not result in someone arbitrarily living on a mountain whipping themselves with no benefit to anyone. Especially since proving you can survive harsh treatment is not particularly virtuous if you don't turn this to helping others anyways.